How OrthoBike Hero Rentals™ Can Work For Your Practice

Basic elements of Hero Rentals™

OrthoBike Hero™: A recumbent therapy bike with adjustable variable length pedals and adjustable seat you can offer to your knee and hip patients for home therapy.

OrthoBike Hero is uniquely suited for home therapy equipment rental: 

• It is just a bike; your patients already know how to use it. You don’t have to be there.
• It is more than a bike; it is also an effective therapeutic mechanical modality giving repetitive motion to patients with limited ROM:
  • Patients with <60° flexion can pedal without pain.
  • Patients can adjust the variable-length pedal cranks and seat position according to the customized roadmap to increase flexion incrementally, systematically by 3-5°.
• Patients love cycling without pain (especially pain-averse patients).
• They love controlling the progress of their therapy.
• They love seeing their progress along their therapy roadmap.
• Compliance: 100%.
• Early cycling rehab with OrthoBike gives the patients hope—especially difficult situations—and makes them more compliant to therapy.

How do your patients at home progress their rehab with OrthoBike?

Differences between clinic use of OrthoBike and home-based therapeutic riding

In the clinic: OrthoBike settings follow manual therapy. The OrthoBike pedals and seat are adjusted so that the patient's maximum pedaling knee flexion angle is a little less than the passive flexion gained with your hands at the table. (See explanation of settings summary label which guides you in quickly adjusting the pedals and seat and instructing the patient.)

Follow-up cycling motion helps lock in the passive gains with many revolutions of a consistent reciprocal pattern of knee flexion and extension. Early cycling also reduces the disabling fear of pain: guarding decreases, compliance increases.

At home: ROM follows OrthoBike settings.  Patients adjust the pedals and seat according to their customized ISP Roadmap to Incrementally and Systematically Progress their knee and hip flexion and extension. They have access to their "second therapist" 24/7 and get therapeutic motion daily to supplement their 2-3 hours of weekly clinic visits.   

OrthoBike ISP Roadmap: A customized chart showing the relationship between seat and pedal settings and the rider’s maximum pedaling knee flexion. It shows them exactly how to adjust the settings to incrementally and systematically progress their knee and hip flexion. It also shows them how to set the pedals and seat to work on extension while progressing their flexion. They can control their cycling therapy at home. It gives them exact guidance with milestones and mile markers so they know where they are, where they are going, and when to celebrate.

It gives them their riding prescription keyed to the pedal crank position (as an indicator of their status): tension setting, sessions/day, session duration, pedaling direction (forwards/backwards), and pace. It tells them how to test and determine when they are ready to advance the bike settings. 

Everything in one place, simple, and proven effective. It is easy to teach; they quickly grasp it —about 15-30 minutes.

OrthoBike Applications

• Cycling exercise immediately following TKA, THA, ACL reconstruction, meniscectomy.
• Prehab and cycling exercise to strengthen knees and improve balance and gait (seniors).
• Reduction of contracture and arthrofibrosis (“intermittent loading in end range of motion changes soft tissue over time”—Robin McKenzie, MDT principle)
• Cycling exercise at limited ROM for non-surgical treatment of torn meniscus, OA, and RA.
• As an adjunct mechanical modality in the clinic that gives your patients repetitive motion.

Cycling therapy earlier in rehab? Like the day after surgery? Yes!

Published science confirms what OrthoBike clinicians have learned, that patients with limited knee ROM can get vital cycling therapy without pain early in rehab.

The science: a brief literature review of cycle ergometry utilizing short- and variable-length pedal cranks. 

Schwartz RE, Asnis, PD, Cavanaugh, JT, Asnis, SE, Simmons, JE, Lasinski, PJ. Short Crank Cycle Ergometry. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 1991;13: 95-100

Goodwin C., Cornwall MW. Effect of an adjustable pedal shaft on ROM and phasic muscle activity of the knee during bicycling. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 1988; 11:259-262.